Retired Circuit Judge Virginia Quinlivan Beverly, a former assistant U.S. attorney and lawyer in private practice before being named to the state bench in 1977, died Tuesday of recently diagnosed pancreatic cancer at the McGraw Center for Caring of Community Hospice of Northeast Florida. She was 83.

Services are pending.

Judge Beverly set many "firsts" throughout her life but said she never planned it, she just stumbled into everything. Her priorities, she said, were her family and the community.

"Judge Beverly brought a grace and charm that complimented her obvious determination to see that justice was done and that the business of the court was handled appropriately," said retired Florida Supreme Court Justice Major B. Harding, who was chief judge in Duval County when Judge Beverly was appointed to the bench in 1976 and administered the oath to her.

"I was privileged to call her my friend and have contact with her not only during our time together on the circuit bench but since then," he said. "She will be missed."

Born Oct. 20, 1926, and reared in Wilmington, N.C., Judge Beverly received a B.S. degree in 1948 from St. Joseph College in Emmitsburg, Md. She returned to Wilmington and began social work handling welfare adoption cases. Encouraged by a supervisor to attend graduate school, she enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill studying child welfare. She soon decided she didn't want to make that her career and switched to its law school.

When she graduated in 1953, she was one of two women in a class of 150. She was the first woman lawyer hired by the Atlantic Coast Line Railroad and then went to work for a Wilmington law firm. After her marriage in 1954, she continued working part-time when her first of three of her four children were born.

In 1960, her husband, Philip C. Beverly, an attorney with the railroad, was transferred from Wilmington to Jacksonville, and she stepped away from the practice of law.

After a five-year hiatus, she and her husband took and passed The Florida Bar exam. The Beverlys were the first couple to pass the bar at the same time.

Judge Beverly began working in 1965 as an assistant U.S. attorney. Three years later, she was the first woman lawyer invited to join the Jacksonville firm of Martin, Ade, Birchfield and Johnson. She remained with that firm until being appointed to the bench by Gov. Reubin Askew in December 1976.

Mary Cousar Coxe was an assistant state attorney assigned to prosecute cases before Judge Beverly and recalls the judge was a "genteel lady from a silk stocking law firm with limited criminal court experience."

Prosecutors, defense attorneys and defendants didn't quite know what to expect from the judge, Coxe said.

"She lulled the defense into a false sense of security. I am sure they thought this sweet little lady would not hurt a fly, much less put Bubba in the jail or the prison farm. Then she would throw the book at them," Coxe said.

But the judge also was compassionate, and those who deserved mercy were granted a second chance, the former prosecutor recalled.

Judge Beverly was a devout Catholic and before being appointed to the bench served on St. Vincent's Hospital Advisory Board.

In 1983, she was the first president of a new all-female Uptown Civitan Club. The club's membership was not restricted to women, but Jacksonville's other Civitan Club had never admitted a woman. Six years later, the Uptown club was named the world's No. 1 Civitan Club.

Judge Beverly was one of five Jacksonville women honored for her achievements by the Mayor's Commission on the Status of Women in 1989.

In 1998, Judge Beverly was the recipient of the Law and Spirituality award from the Catholic Lawyers Guild of the Diocese of St. Augustine. She was honored by the Women's Center of Jacksonville and Women's Digest on Equal Pay Day 2007 with The Pioneer Award recognizing her for personifying the spirit of "Rosie" (the Riveter) by breaking down gender barriers during her career.

"She was a great mom to us," said a son, Philip Beverly Jr. of Gainesville, "and a wonderful wife to dad."

Her husband of 46 years died Jan. 15, 2001. In addition to her son, she is survived by three children: Laura Beverly, a Jacksonville pediatrician; Circuit Judge Thomas Beverly of Jacksonville and Fred Beverly of Ashburn, Va.; and seven grandchildren.

jessie-lynne.kerr@jacksonville.com, (904) 359-4374

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